PS 130, located at 200-01 42nd Avenue in Bayside, currently serves mainly District 25 students. The school, however, is geographically in District 26 and historically was a K-6 and K-8 school for students living on the Auburndale/Bayside border.

Through political manipulation, the school was closed to local children, and after several incarnations, became what it is today. Many of the students are bused in from other District 25 areas, while the local children are bused to overcrowded District 26 schools.

This makes no sense considering the effect on students’ education and the prohibitive cost of busing children. Children living across or down the street from PS 130 cannot readily attend their neighborhood school, a school that they could get to by walking.

The Auburndale Improvement Association is circulating a petition calling for the return of PS 130 to neighborhood children. We realize that the education of the students currently attending the school must not be disrupted, and the changeover would have to be gradual.

We also feel that the program at the school for special needs students should stay, because we believe that there would still be sufficient room for local children on the upper floors of the building.

Likewise, the present controversy as to where to site a new elementary school in District 26 may be moot or at least it may place emphasis on siting a new school elsewhere in District 26, or in District 25, at an appropriate place agreeable to the community.